Mrs Cambridge attended the Queen’s garden party today at Buckingham Palace with her in-laws. She looked great in yellow over the growing heir. Not much longer now.

As you can see, Kate seems to get on great with Camilla. And William?

Garden parties aren’t for the Wales boys, I guess. He was out with his father yesterday at Clarence House for a conference on the illegal wildlife trade. You see all those items on that display table? Chinese people. Bear hearts, tiger claws, turtles...

It’s all in service of a long life.

I remember my ma’s dad being really sick one summer I was in Hong Kong and someone found him some turtle soup and they swore it cured him. This obsession with longevity has been a Chinese attribute for thousands of years. When we were little kids they used to tell us a legend about the emperor who could not face mortality. The legend has changed over time but here are the basics, as it was recounted to people in my generation:

Emperor Qin was growing older and afraid to die. He assembled all the brightest scholars in the land to court, ordering them to find a solution, concoct a potion, find an herb, anything that would ensure he would live forever. He told them that if they failed, he’d kill them, their families, any and all of their associates.

Knowing that it was an impossible assignment, the academics gathered up their loved ones in the night and set sail. They were the elite minds of an entire generation. And they left China, never to return, heading towards the Land of the Rising Sun.